Posted By DJ Bean On December 15, 2013 @ 12:44 am In General | 11 Comments

The Bruins found Rogers Arena to be much different from how they’d left it back in June of 2011, as the Canucks welcomed the B’s back to Vancouver by handing them a 6-2 loss Saturday night.

Tuukka Rask[1] was pulled for the first time since Feb. 8, 2012 in a performance that saw him allow four goals on 23 shots. Chad Johnson[2] allowed two of the first three shots he faced past him, but one was a Canucks shorthanded goal.

Though the game ended up being rather high-scoring for Vancouver, the only goal of the first period came in the form of a Jannik Hansen goal. The play was a doozy, as Hansen’s slapshot from center ice went off Zdeno Chara[3]‘s stick and fooled Rask as it flew past him. Though Reilly Smith tied it in the second, the Canucks took a 3-1 lead into the third period thanks to goals from David Booth and Chris Higgins before adding three more in the third. Smith scored his second of the game after Vancouver had taken a 6-1 lead with goals from Yannick Weber, Henrik Sedin[4] and Chris Tanev.

Roberto Luongo[5] made 39 saves on 41 shots as the Canucks won their seventh game in a row.

The loss concluded a four-game Canadian road trip for the Bruins in which they went 3-1-0. They will host the Flames Tuesday at TD Garden.

WHAT WENT WRONG FOR THE BRUINS

– Torey Krug was on the ice for the Canucks’ first three goals and was a minus-3 on the night. There was obviously nothing he could have done about Hansen’s goal, but he gave Booth too much space on the second goal and couldn’t get the puck out in front on Higgins’ goal. Krug, who leads Bruins defensemen with nine goals this season, has just one goal over his last nine games.

-Brad Marchand[6] had a whale of a time trolling the Canucks, but it’s a tough sell when you’re losing a game by multiple goals. Both gestures he pulled were funny and typical Marchand — kissing his ring finger in the second period and raising an imaginary Stanley Cup[7] in the third — but when you’re losing the way the Bruins were Saturday it just comes off as the linebacker of a losing team celebrating a sack in the fourth quarter.

Then again, Marchand got suspended for a low-bridge hit the last time the Bruins played the Canucks, so at least he didn’t pull anything that really cost the Bruins. Baby steps.

WHAT WENT RIGHT FOR THE BRUINS

– They did not lose Jarome Iginla to a finger injury, which sure looked to be the case after a still frame of Iginla after a first-period fight with Ryan Kesler[8] showed Iginla’s left ring finger bent in all sorts of crazy ways. Iginla missed the final 13 minutes of the first period but returned for the second and played the rest of the game.

– Smith missed the morning skate with the flu, but he was plenty healthy to take a puck off a neutral zone turnover, fly into the Vancouver zone and cut in to beat Luongo with a backhander. Smith now now has four goals and two assists for six points over his last five games.

– Kevan Miller saved Rask’s bacon early on in the first period. With the Canucks on a 3-on-2, a Booth shot trickled through the Bruins’ goaltender and was headed into the net before Miller knocked it out of the crease. Miller has handled the minutes that have been thrown his way just fine this season.